I've decided it's time to build myself another PC, and have once again come seeking advice.
I built this machine in 2008, and haven't paid any attention to all of the new hardware and software released since, so I'm not really sure about most of what I've been looking at.
I'm only looking to spend about $1,300 max, and this is what I've picked out so far, in no particular order.

No cpu cooler in the list as I've literally just decided on the i5 and haven't looked yet.
Is there any particular cooler I should look into?
No case either, as I'm waiting until I've picked out everything else before looking.
Taking suggestions for those, too, if you've got 'em.

What I'm the most hung up on is the motherboard.
That video card I selected looks like it takes up two slots, so I'd need a motherboard with enough room for it. Those I looked at don't appear to have enough room, but then again I'm not exactly knowledgeable about these things and could easily be wrong. I have no idea.
Any suggestions?

This will be my second build, and that coupled with the fact that I've been out of the loop for so long means it's likely I've made a mistake or a couple dozen somewhere. Feel free to point them out!
Thanks for any help.

Edit: I'd like to add that my monitor is 1024x768 native.
I don't have any need for a larger resolution, so the video card I chose is likely overkill.
Basically, I just want a card capable of maxing todays games at a resolution of 1024x768 with a steady 60fps+. Am I correct in assuming the card I chose is overkill for this? If so, can anyone recommend a cheaper card that can still do what I want?

I made a few changes and added you a monitor to your list. No one in 2012 should be playing anything at your current resolution, not even Facebook games... you might not realize that yet but you will once you see the new screen lol :shadedshu

You also have an SSD for main OS drive... reuse your current builds 500GB drive as data/storage/game/backup.. itll result in a much faster system this way.

I've also 'downgraded' you to a non-Ti 660... the reason being the 660 Ti is only 11% faster at 1920x1080 and as a result, in my view, isnt worth the extra $100 over the non-Ti and that money could be better used on a monitor instead.

The board is budget but who cares... it'll work just fine and you wont be caring as the 3570k is much, much faster than your current CPU.

I changed the RAM to 8GB as no one (a very select few!) needs 16 and the price difference can contribute to other things in this build.

The thermal paste has been changed to TX2 to save a few clams and its also marginally better than AS5 that's pretty damn old at this point.

Cooling is provided by a Corsair H60 that'll surpass your needs.

The total for my modded build comes to about $1120 without rebates... a fair price for your build and it allows wiggle room to add another HDD, maybe a 1TB drive, to your build.... you can even get an higher end board if you'd like but I chose the one I did to cut costs and add in the monitor.

Either way its a solid build and will be much faster than your current one.

Looking past the fact you don't get updates to fix Microshafts numerous holes and other such lovely things they messed up.... you are spending $1000's on hardware that you're going to use compromised software on.....

Wheres the logic in that?

No one likes paying Microsoft money, I get that, but you wouldn't run an antivirus to protect your system that you've downloaded on some torrent site as you'd deem it 'unsafe' so why would you run an OS?

Compromising the integrity of my machine I've spent good money on by running an OS that's pirated all so I can have 11% more graphical power for which I'll never use before the card becomes obsolete kinda makes no sense to me.... at all.

And to those who chose to run an OS that's pirated AND an antivirus... you sir(miss?), are an idiot.

You could actually try helping the guy by providing him with useful input on his build rather than breaking the ToS of this site.... I'm sure he would like that a lot more and so would the staff over here.

I'm fine with gaming at this resolution, so I won't be looking into a monitor any time soon.
Until very recently I had actually been using an even smaller monitor, 800x600 native.
Played the hell out of Oblivion on that thing, and was perfectly happy with it.
Only reason I switched to this one was because my brother gave it to me.
Now, I know full well it'd look better, I just don't feel it's better by a large enough degree to warrant the purchase.
I'd rather use the money for better parts.

I don't intend to reuse any of the parts in this machine. I want this one to stick around as a ready-to-go backup, just in case, so I'll just stick with that hdd I found.
500GB is plenty for me. After nearly five years, I still have 238GB free on this one.
As long as it's at least as fast as this one, I'm happy.

For some reason when I was looking to decrease the cost, the ram never even crossed my mind.
I had a bad experience with Crucial ram in the past, so I'm going to go with 2x4GB sticks of G.Skill. Saved me nearly $50 there.

I really, really don't want to use watercooling. The thought of it possibly leaking and destroying everything scares the hell out of me, so I want to stay with air.
The NV120 with Arctic Silver paste seems to work really well for my current processor, even when completely full of dust. I don't do any overclocking or anything like that, so I'd expect a similar setup for the new build to work just as well.

As for the motherboard.. Looking for a good motherboard at a good price is giving me a friggin' migraine.
I don't think I want a budget board. I want quality, something that will last.
But every damn thing I find on Newegg seems to have a lot of people complaining about failures, or other problems. I realize that the unsatisfied are more vocal, but still, this is scaring me.
So, then, any other suggestions for a motherboard?
At this point I'd be happy to spend up to $250 if it meant getting a quality, lasting board.

Something that I keep reading about are bios updates. I've never done that, since I heard it could brick the motherboard, but it seems some of these boards need an update before they could even recognize the damned cpu I've chosen.

Worse case scenario, can the bios be updated if the motherboard doesn't recognize the cpu before the update? Basically, can it be updated before the machine is fully built?
Hopefully that won't be an issue with whatever board I choose, but you never know..

I'm guessing the 7950 is more powerful than the 660.
I've read that the drivers for those cards aren't so good.. But the main thing is the cost.
I'll probably have to spend quite a lot on the motherboard, so I'll likely have to stick with the 660 regardless.
I think I'd rather stay with the psu I listed earlier as the reviews seem more positive.
I had a psu fail on me years ago, and don't want to go through that crap again.. As with the motherboard, I figure the extra cost is worth it.
Plenty of power for any future upgrades I may want, too.
My experience with aftermarket paste has been positive thus far, and since it's not that costly, why not?

This irritating motherboard crap really has given me a migraine.. Time for a break, I think.

Couple of bucks more expensive initially, but the two rebates bring it down. Squeezed in Samsung HYK0 based ram (2400+ ram clocks with a good IMC). A better water cooler with good aftermarket paste included. Also tossed in a very good powersupply and 7950. The 7950 does not have bad drivers and I don't honestly know were you read that, but considering it is smoking a certain brands cards like a doobie I imagine it was a certain group pulling at straws.

Both the model below and above get stellar reviews. The units are all 80+ Platinum certified built by ATNG which is a quite good OEM. Great thing about rosewill is they are constantly fixing issues reviewers have seen.

Deff go ssd if that is all the drive space you have used in the past. You can always add a hdd if you need the additional room. I have the kingston hyperx 3k 120gb and its worked excellently so that is my suggestion.

Honestly you really need to upgrade that screen, personally wouldn't even consider the new build without a new screen. I also have a 7950 and it is a beast, so that is another recommendation on my part (but you must update that screen!). Oh and you certainly don't need to spend $250 on a motherboard. I picked mine up for 99 bucks with a rebate, regular $150 and its doing its job with a marginal oc.

I'm not against it, really, I've simply been using small monitors for so long that it doesn't bother me.
Yes, if I saw one, I'd like it. A lot, I'm sure. I sure liked this one after comparing it to my old 800x600 monitor. But I'd really rather spend money on higher quality parts than something I don't really need. If this thing were showing signs of dying on me, you better believe I'd be looking at monitors, but until that time comes I'm sticking with it.

It might not be worth upgrading to you, but it is to me.
This old thing can't really handle games released after 2009, meaning I've missed out on a lot or have been forced to turn to the ol' 360 to satisfy my gaming needs.
I love modding and texturing and have missed that greatly.
Looking forward to trying out Skyrim for that reason.. I love fooling around with the toolset in those games.

I haven't really changed my list of parts much yet.
I'm still (sigh..) looking for a motherboard.
Found one that looked absolutely perfect, an Asus board on Newegg that comes with a free 8gb set of G.Skill ram, almost the same thing I had picked out in fact.
Further digging reveals that particular ram isn't on the QVL for the board. Figures.

Edit: Okay. May have found a "good enough" motherboard.ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/...
Anyone have any experience with that board?
Enough room for an aftermarket cooler? Enough room for a dual slot gpu?
Anything in particular I need to know about it?

I hope this turns out to be the one. I am sick and tired of looking at these things by now.
I'll check back tomorrow.

I'm not against it, really, I've simply been using small monitors for so long that it doesn't bother me.
Yes, if I saw one, I'd like it. A lot, I'm sure. I sure liked this one after comparing it to my old 800x600 monitor. But I'd really rather spend money on higher quality parts than something I don't really need. If this thing were showing signs of dying on me, you better believe I'd be looking at monitors, but until that time comes I'm sticking with it.

It might not be worth upgrading to you, but it is to me.
This old thing can't really handle games released after 2009, meaning I've missed out on a lot or have been forced to turn to the ol' 360 to satisfy my gaming needs.
I love modding and texturing and have missed that greatly.
Looking forward to trying out Skyrim for that reason.. I love fooling around with the toolset in those games.

I haven't really changed my list of parts much yet.
I'm still (sigh..) looking for a motherboard.
Found one that looked absolutely perfect, an Asus board on Newegg that comes with a free 8gb set of G.Skill ram, almost the same thing I had picked out in fact.
Further digging reveals that particular ram isn't on the QVL for the board. Figures.

Edit: Okay. May have found a "good enough" motherboard.ASUS P8Z77-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/...
Anyone have any experience with that board?
Enough room for an aftermarket cooler? Enough room for a dual slot gpu?
Anything in particular I need to know about it?

I hope this turns out to be the one. I am sick and tired of looking at these things by now.
I'll check back tomorrow.

I don't need a terabyte harddrive, but 120gb certainly doesn't seem to be enough for me and higher capacity SSD's get quite pricey. HDD and SSD combo is also too pricey.
As for the card, it's $70 cheaper and apparently performs about the same as the 7950.

Edit: You know, I think I may have gotten a little carried away.
Okay, a lot. A friggin' crap load.
This was meant to be a gaming pc. Now, looking at the games available, I realize.. I don't care for the vast majority of them. Only Skyrim really interests me, and it certainly isn't worth $1,300.
Jesus Christ, I really should have stayed in the loop these past 4 years.
It'd be all right if I wasn't stuck with mobile broadband here. I can't game online with that. Far, far, FAR too slow. Sometimes it dips to below dial-up speeds for Gods sake.
And wouldn't you know it, just about every damn thing seems to use steam these days which means lots and lots of downloading. Several days straight sometimes with my internet connection.

I feel for you and your internet connection. That must be painful. As far as your choices I understand the SSD concerns. I used a 500Gb drive for years before getting my first SSD. And with an 120Gb drive its not much room. You do still have room to cut that budget some

If you're reconsidering your budget you could always do a little now and some more later. Your current rig would likely benefit most from a better vid card, moving up to Windows 7 (or 8), and a better monitor.

For under $500 you can get a decent 22-24" 1080p monitor, a 7850 or 7870 vid card, and a copy of Windows 7/8. All of these will greatly improve what you have now and can carry over to any new rig you consider building in the future

Those R4 drives are great, but you do know they are enterprise drives? and has RAID-specific, time-limited error recovery (TLER) and is SATAII. I wouldn't buy that drive unless I was buying more to put into a RAID Array or really worried about losing any information on the disk. If you are then I would buy no less then 2x drives in RAID 1. Any single drive can fail and will. You can't judge it by having one for so many years, because if you do then you'll be SOL when it fails. I'd buy a 500GB WD Black for $69.99 and put the rest for the Ti card or a bigger monitor.

That's not really an issue these days, most systems i've dealt with with non-legit version of windows are fully capable of recieving all updates without question, though win7 64bit decent version is only £60 here in the uk, so it's not a huge expense in honesty.

On Topic - if you're hung up on budget, you can always go down the amd piledriver route. for budget systems, they really are pretty good. Though over here you can get a 3570k for £20 more than an fx8350. Take a look at the fx 4000 and 6000 series processors, not the best, but i had a 6200 that ran most games above and beyond 60fps with a good graphics card.
You can always go for a dirt cheap mobo, all you really need is the socket support of your chosen processor, 4 ddr3 slots that can handle 1600mhz ram, and a single 16x pcie lane. you dont need any more than 8gb ram, any manufacturer, 2x 4gb or 1 x 8gb, id recommend at speeds of 1600mhz. I would also agree on getting a 1080p monitor. As for graphics, nv 660 or ati 7850 and above are pretty damn good.